Celebrate the End of March Madness with This IoT Basketball Hoop

If you forgot to watch any basketball this year, you’re in luck as the college basketball national championship is actually today, April 2nd, between Villanova and Michigan. While watching the game on TV may or may not be of interest, in order to hone his own office basketball skills, hacker, software developer, and electrical engineer Brandon Rice made his own IoT hoop.

Rice was inspired by the fact that he “had an inflatable ball on [his] desk and realized it would be a lot more fun with a basketball hoop.” That was all he needed to get started, and constructed the hoop and backboard out of laser-cut ¼-inch birch plywood.

To sense the ball passing through the hoop, an IR sensor was used after an ultrasound sensor was found to be insufficient. Score is kept with the help of an Arduino Uno along with a Particle Photon, giving it the ability to connect to the Internet and other devices to show off your prowess to the world.

Finally, if you’re around this hoop in real life, an array of LEDs flashes after five poins and an LCD screen displays the score. It looks like a fun and approachable build — made for under $50 — and Rice is quite satisfied with it. Even better, it’s been working for over a year!